Times 27604 – let’s get retro!

Author   glheardPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 12:40. Struggled a little here especially near the end where I was trawling the alphabet for likely candidates for the last few entries.

For the past few years I have been using a blog template provided by mohn2, but for some reason when I try to use it today I get an error (I tried it on the mephisto and also got an error). Not sure what the dealio is, so I am going back to the old blog template, which means you won’t get the clues. If the template works in the morning, or I get a message about a fix, I might replace the section under this with the one with the clues.

Away we go…

Across
1 MUST HAVE: MUSE(to ponder) surrounding most of THe, and AV(Authorized Version, bible)
9 DEADLINE: double definition, the first one kind of cryptic
10 REHANG: Spoonerism of HE, RANG (man, contacted)
11 LETTING OUT: LETT(N.E. European), IN(at home) and GOUT(painful affliction)
12 RAMP: MP(politician) with RA(troops)
13 PROSTRATED: PRO(paid player), then STATED(said) containing R(runs)
16 BEAR PIT: BIT(part) containing Wyatt EARP (Wild West lawman)
17 INFANCY: IN(popular), FANCY(conception)
20 OFF THE PACE: if you were removed from a particular post, you could be OFF THE PLACE, then remove the L(liberal)
22 CORD: the alternative notes are C OR D
23 BUCKET SEAT: EAT(worry) after BUCKETS(a great deal)
26 ABLUTION: remove SO from ABSOLUTION(forgiveness)
27 ALL ALONG: anagram of GALLON after PAL missing P(pressure)
 
Down
2 USERNAME: anagram of MEASURE containing N(new)
3 TEAM SPIRIT: SPIRIT(drink) after TEA(another drink) and M(male)
4 ANGLOPHILE: anagram of HOPING,ALL and the last letter of batS
5 EDITION: NO(number), I(current) and TIDE(current) all reversed
6 MAXI: the gnome is a MAXIM, remove the last letter
7 PIG OUT: GI(soldier) reversed with POUT surrounding it
8 HEATEDLY: anagram of THEY,LEAD
14 TANGENTIAL: GENT(toff) inside an anagram of A,LATIN
15 ANARCHICAL: AN ARCH(a bridge) then CALL(bid) missing the last letter surrounding I(one)
16 BROWBEAT: BEAT(regular route for a policeman) after BROW(summit)
18 CAROLEAN: A, ROLE(duty) in CAN(prison)
19 TAVERNA: ANT(colonist) reversed, containing AVER(state)
21 FACILE: IL(the in Italian) inside FACE(front)
24 TRIM: first letter of Troops, then RIM(edge)

41 comments on “Times 27604 – let’s get retro!”

  1. This was like big-game fishing in the Bermuda Triangle, plenty of bites but a slow haul.

    FOI 25ac INCHED

    LOI 6dn MAXI – that sort of gnome!

    COD 4dn ANGLOPHILE

    WOD 18dn CAROLEAN – Proper Charlie’s

    23ac BUCKET SEAT what a driver may have gotten into?

    I enjoyed the Spoonerism for once.

  2. A real DNF for me rather than technical because even after resorting to aids I wasn’t able to solve 20ac so in desperation I used ‘Reveal’ on the Times site. I am still none the wiser really as I have never heard of OFF THE PACE and can’t relate it to the definition.

    I guessed BUCKET SEAT, last heard of in the days of the Morris Minor – is it really still in use today?

    Rather a re-run of yesterday when I got within two or three of completing the grid but then ran out of steam and gave up on it.

    Note to George. I tested my script on today’s puzzle and it worked fine. I can’t be sure that my version is exactly the same as yours but this would suggest that nothing has changed at the Times end of things.

    1. Yes, I suppose a car having “bucket seats” (and four on the floor) isn’t the selling point it once was. I just looked at a recent brochure for a VW Golf and it wasn’t mentioned. Front bench seats, which were the norm when I was growing up, are now almost a thing of the past, along with the three on the tree gear shift. In those decidedly non-PC, pre-seat belt days, as bucket seats became more common, cars which still had front bench seats were known as “Catholic cars” – provided a bit of extra room for all those nippers.
      1. We have a VW Caravelle with a bench seat in the front, so they haven’t entirely disappeared!
      2. I learned to drive in a Standard Vanguard Vignale Estate Car(1961 model) which had a bench front seat. 6 cylinder wet liner engine. Drum brakes all round which could be adjusted without taking the wheels off by sticking a screwdriver through the appropriate aperture. It ate cylinder head gaskets!
      3. We still have my in-laws’ 1962 Buick Electra which has a bench seat in front. https://cdn02.carsforsale.com/3/378817/9506636/870588061.jpg I took my NY driving test in it some years back and my examiner was so entranced with the car he didn’t notice that I botched the parallel parking. All those fabulous cars in the Perry Mason episodes seem to have bench seats – Della’s always sliding over to make room for Perry and Paul.
    2. George. There is a potential gotcha with the script. I’ll send you a message.
      1. There are two scripts, and the earliest one is the one I use to export the clues and answers. I haven’t given it a trial whirl yet after hearing this, but please copy me on this too, as I’d find it interesting even if it doesn’t apply to my situation.
  3. I’d never heard of OFF THE PACE; I was taking the first part as the definition rather than the last, so had OFF THE CASE (as the maverick detective in a classic noir), but couldn’t parse the rest of the clue so knew my answer was wrong. Enjoyed working the rest, though.

    (I’m also relieved that Jackkt’s script still works!)

  4. A pink-squared ‘off the case’ for me too, so a DNF in goodness knows how long. I liked the ‘down’, ‘Extensive clothing’ and ‘Thin guy’s’ defs which made the struggle (just about) worth it.
  5. Another DNF – off the pace (and off the wavelength), facile, carolean, and anarchical all empty, and wrongly wrote in all clear at 28 ac after correctly solving all along. A real mess. Always thought a taverna was a bar rather than a hotel – you learn something new every puzzle. The Italian: il, la, lo, i, le, gli.
  6. 20:53. Which means I’m not OFF THE PACE today. Lots to enjoy and I was relieved not to get stuck, with the pennies dropping fairly quickly. I did need an alphabet trawl, though, for my LOI – MAXI. I liked CORD best.
  7. Something of a result for me this morning, finishing in about my average time for a crossword rated as tough by the SNITCH and managing to avoid OFF THE CASE. I was sorely tempted and it’s just the sort of error I make time and time again so I’m happy to have ducked it today. I also struggled with CORD which I finally went with thinking the musical bit might be an alternative spelling of chord. Not that it means consecutive notes but I was clutching at straws a bit.
  8. 47 minutes with LOI CORD, taking ages to associate guy with rope to see how the definition worked. COD to DEADLINE. I was pleased to construct PROSTRATED early too, and spot the camouflaged definition. OFF THE PACE is a phrase frequently heard in sports commentaries, not just in racing events. It can be said of a team in mid-table expected to be doing better.Wanderers are just a bit off the pace this season! I even described a lawyer who was being particularly dim-witted this week of being it, although he was probably just stalling for time. Quite a toughie. Thank you George and setter.

    Edited at 2020-03-05 08:50 am (UTC)

  9. 18:08, but another OFF THE CASE here. I kind of knew it was wrong (I say ‘kind of’ because in the same way I knew that EVENTIDE was wrong the other day and it wasn’t) but couldn’t think of anything else. Even after a couple of alphabet trawls I failed to come up with OFF THE PACE for some reason. The expression is perfectly familiar to me so I can’t even blame my own ignorance: just pure unalloyed stupidity.
    So no complaints, I thought it was an excellent puzzle with some cleverly disguised definitions: too well disguised in one case.

    Edited at 2020-03-05 10:06 am (UTC)

  10. … the short ones at 6d and 22a, done in half an hour no probs, but those last two then had me resorting to the blog out of frustration or curiosity. I was obsessed with wanting SARI for my extensive clothing but unable to justify it, in spite of remembering a gnome could be a saying; I was obsessed with looking for a word meaning THIN for 22a, forgetting the guy = string, cord meaning of the word. No excuse really, for either, otherwise a jolly good puzzle. The SW quadrant clues all get my CoD.
  11. Started reasonably quickly, then slowed down a bit, then ground to a complete halt, determined not to put in SARI and OFF THE PAGE when I couldn’t see any justification for either (which turned out to be a very good plan), but finding it hard to get those out of my head to see the correct alternatives. All in all, a very carefully-constructed puzzle, with plenty of opportunity to be misled.
  12. Yeah, total DNF. Off the case; sari (cos I couldn’t remember maxim); nothing for carolean.
    Last Thursday’s was harder on the snitch, but managed it okay, as it was somehow a bit more accessible to creative thinking. This one was wild and woolly – just couldn’t nail it down.
    Thanks george.
  13. Well, I thought OFF THE CASE was ok, except for its lack of consonance with the wordplay, which I was sure George would explain. Thanks George, perfect explanation and correction in one go. I should have seen it, of course, not least with Spurs giving a fine demonstration of the true answer last night.

    SARI was difficult to drop, especially since it’s arguably more extensive than a MAXI, but then I’ve yet to find a gnome called Sarin.
    Fast start, treacly finish.

  14. Another who found this tough going, but I struggled on and managed to come up with CORD and MAXI, which was my LOI after a trawl finally disposed of SARI. Was pleased to get CAROLEAN after discounting JACOBEAN. Took a while to ignore WALL and CASE at 20a, but I finally saw it. Lots of well disguised definitions and a real sense of accomplishment to get it all correct without referring to aids. 45:11. Thanks setter and George.

    Edited at 2020-03-05 11:43 am (UTC)

  15. The setter certainly managed to make me feel the exact opposite of a thin guy (thick girl). I’ll add “off the base” to the range of possibles considered for 20a which took a goodly chunk of my 27.05. I was reduced to wondering if MAXI(m) was the name of a gnome in the Ring Cycle until like Horryd I finally twigged oh THAT gnome. Some very tricky stuff here.
  16. 41.40 but mistake at 6 dn. Couldn’t think of anything else so put in sari- who’s sari now? Maxi is obvious when you see it in print.

    Lots of good clues I thought which included 18 and 19 down. LOI tangential.

  17. I failed to get CORD, having a desperate stab at CARD with no real reasoning other than running out of lunch break time. That, and CAROLEAN which I wasn’t sure of, took up a healthy chunk of 15 and a half minutes.
  18. But another off-the-caser here. Plus I aggravated matters by accidentally failing to fill in 6 down, which is just as well as I was going to put in Sari. So all in all, not a good day.
  19. 17:15, tricky and/but enjoyable.

    OFF THE PACE perfectly familiar but I feel a bit dim never having heard of CAROLEAN before.

    1. I know this largely from the answer to the trivia question ‘which seven US states are named after monarchs’.
      1. Given that Carolean refers to Charles I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me that Hawaii had something to do with Harold.
  20. Tricky. But I got there. I almost put in OFF THE CASE and then I did an alphabet trawl and spotted OFF THE PACE. Luckily I got the “gnome” thing immediately and was trying things like MOTTo the first time around before I had any checkers. I never even thought of the SARI possibility. It seems Thursday is the new Friday, after last week’s toughie in this spot.
  21. Gosh! They certainly know how to advertise their product!
    I won’t be taking advantage though…..

    Back to the puzzle. Stuck at the end. Thought it was CORD, but could only think they were referring to it as an alternative spelling of CHORD. OFF THE PACE and MAXI also held me up, was trying to justify SARI without success. Think I may have come across those kind of gnomes here, but nowhere else, and didn’t remember what it was.

  22. Tough, this one. I had the same holdups as others – Off The Base, Maxi, Cord. Usually I put a tick beside clues I find clever or enjoyable, but today I stopped when I realized there were ticks next to almost everything. Thanks George and setter.
  23. ….DEADLINE on this one, after yet another slow start. I thought it was top-notch.

    I deliberated carefully at 20A before correctly plumping for PACE, not case, and only parsed ANARCHICAL later.

    FOI INCHED
    LOI CORD
    COD BROWBEAT
    TIME 18:20

  24. Had to come out with my hands up today. I’d forgotten Thursday was the new Friday and only allowed myself 60 minutes for the crossword before I had to leave for work. I still had SARI and OFF THE CASE to enter once I’d worked out why they were right. Which I hadn’t yet done when my time was up. Which was a shame.
  26. Failed to finish this in my lunch hour, and then failed to finish it some more when I got home. OFF THE PACE, the unknown CAROLEAN and its crosser CORD all did for me.
  27. No real time for this one. After about 50 mins at lunchtime I still had 13ac, 17ac, 20ac, 22ac, 8dn, 14dn and 15dn left to get. I eventually tidied them all up on the commute home. I take some satisfaction in getting everything parsed correctly. Lots of clever stuff to admire. Bit of a brute though.
  28. Never heard of OFF THE PACE and the cryptic part still seems super weird and clunky to me so that held me up a good few minutes at the end. A wavelengthy puzzle for sure, and one that I was not on.

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